Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday was a busy, but very fun day.

In spite of the rain and traffic I arrived on time at the library in Harris Elementary School in St. Charles to talk to more than 400 students in KG-4th grade about "The Life of a Writer." The visit was set up by Ruth Guffey from the Saint Charles City School District Partners in Education Program. The school's Literacy Leader Melissa Armbruster oversaw the program. (Thanks, Becky, for sending my name to Ruth.)

For the event I joined Sarah Weaver and Stephanie Bearce. Sarah is a young, an enthusiastic and an intelligent reporter who talked about some of her reporting assignments, including President Obama's visit to St. Charles in March. Stephanie is a vivbrant and knowledgeable retired teacher who has written several non-fiction books and is working on a fiction book.

The real stars of the program, however, were the students. What a joy it was to be in their presence! They asked great questions and had some charming answers when they were asked questions. I was amazed that the kindergartners knew the difference between fiction and non-fiction. All the children were attentative and appreciative and just so sweet.

After leaving Harris School, I met up with my sister Kathleen and friends Gerri and Patty to go to the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. The four of us are volunteer gallery attendants for the Splendors of the Vatican exhibition which runs through September. The crowd wasn't as large as last Sunday so I had some time to examine some items in the collection more closely.

Last night I typed up several current event papers for Cari (that are due today) and didn't get to bed until early this morning--around 2 a.m.

Today is catch-up day. I'll be signing the kiddos up for two short summer day camps and Ill be updating the Saturday Writers website, which is long overdue. And housework is calling my name.

Tomorrow (and for the next 10 days) I'm hoping to receive more entries in my no-fee, easy-to-enter short story contest in honor of National Short Story month.

You can find complete guidelines on my May 3 post. In a nutshell, stories should be unpublished, in English, no more than 2010 words, and e-mailed to me (copy and paste in the body of an e-mail) dvolkenannt (at) charter (dot) net by May 31. Open to writers in the USA and Canada. First place winner receives a copy of the out-of-print Cuivre River Anthology (Vol I). Top three winners receive certificates.

Hope you all have a great weekend. I'll be back on Monday!